Gearing, while still getting hit by hot bullets himself, jumps over, grabs Handy, and throws him away from the obvious kill zone before rolling and tumbling away from the stream of bullets too. Pieces of his wings go flying from the various bullet impacts, and his little maneuver that was a bit rough on already injured pieces of crystal. Gearing completes the maneuver by leaping back up onto his hooves, pulls out the prototype shotgun, and jumps over to the shipping container where the bullets just keep pouring out of and through the sheet metal on one side. He sees a spot where multiple bullets had penetrated in a rather tight cluster, and jams his shotgun’s barrel right into the hole they’d created. It screams a bit as while some of the metal has a bunch of burr covered holes in it, it is still relatively thick sheet metal. And once the barrel end is inside, he begins unleashing into the enclosed space of the shipping container with the over-sized pellets that come flying out of the shotgun’s muzzle at a murderous velocity.

And, unfortunately for the ponies inside of the shipping container, the large ball bearings being dumped into the space with them are a perfect design to bounce around inside of the container, without losing much velocity in the process. After just a few seconds of firing, the swarm of pellets bouncing around inside of the shipping container are so thick that it could be arguably compared to a blast from a Claymore mine.

And, with that, the gun firing through the sheet metal is silenced as those red bars on Swift’s EFS disappear.

Swift, who had been up in the air at the start of the attack, was close enough to see the full horror that was unleashed on Handy in excruciating detail. And as Gearing had moved to fight back at their ambushers, she’d zipped down, grabbed Handy from where Gearing had tossed him, and dragged him to the side behind a piece of machinery that was mostly buried in rubble. She wasn’t going to risk putting him near another shipping container if they had weapons that could shoot right through them from the relative safety of being inside of them. And as she’s setting Handy down, and noticing the blood all over him, she screams out in a panicked voice that she just wasn’t aware of being able to produce, “Gearing!!!”

Having eliminated their attackers, Gearing yanks his weapon back out and bounds over to join Swift and Handy, and finds Handy covered in blood. He runs over to him, slides next to him, and starts opening his bags to pull out a healing potion. He starts looking through them, then pulls up his PipBuck to check his current inventory before he starts screaming. “Fuck! They broke my healing potion bulbs too!” He starts yanking off Handy’s bags, and actually pulls it straight off of Handy’s body by ripping the already damaged bags. But, again, the contents have been shot up rather extensively and Gearing can see the purple liquid dripping out along the ground and leaving a trail all the way back to where Handy had been shot, just like his blood trail.

Gearing starts pulling Handy’s equipment off rather roughly as he screams, “Swift. Healing potions. Now!”

Swift nods rapidly and starts looking through her bags. And as Gearing is violently removing Handy’s armor, Swift panics more and more. She even grabs her bag, turns it upside down, and dumps it onto the ground. “Where the fuck are they?!”

Gearing looks at her and asks, “Were you shot too?! Don’t lie to me!”

Swift quickly pat herself down and shakes her head. “No, this is all his! I don’t know where my healing potions are! I should have-” She stops, and her eyes go wide. “Oh god! I set them on my desk to put in my bag, but forgot them!” She starts slapping herself. “I fucking forgot them!”

Gearing grabs Handy’s bag, and holds it over Handy’s muzzle. And, it’s not hard to get what little fluid is coming out of the bag into Handy as Handy’s mouth is still left open mid scream. Gearing groans as the various bits and pieces fall down. “Sorry, Handy. The auto doc can get the glass out but this is all we have at the moment!” He even pulls off his own saddle bag, and starts scraping out the small bits of healing potion he can from the inside of his bag. Even twisting the cloth to try and coax out some more that had soaked into it in the process. But, he knows, this isn’t going to be enough. Not by a long shot. Even a couple healing potions probably wouldn’t be enough for what Handy’s just had unleashed on him. At best this is just giving them more time, and he knows it.

Handy needs an auto doc. And Gearing knows that too. But getting him there is going to be the problem. Especially getting him there in time, considering the damage that Gearing is currently seeing all over Handy’s body.

Gearing pulls out cloth he’d brought with him for padding purposes, and crams a ball of cloth into one bleeding hole in Handy’s abdomen. He holds it there, grabs Swift’s forehoof, and yanks her over, putting her hoof right where his is by replacing it and pushing down as he demands, “Right here, put pressure right here. And here!” He unceremoniously rips off one of the wrappings Swift has around her forelegs, and slaps the wad of cloth onto Handy’s neck, and uses one of Swift’s wings to hold it in place. The shock is so overwhelming for Swift as she watches this nightmare play out before her eyes that she simply complies without a word as she’s more than a little freaked out at the moment.

Gearing flicks out one of his small hidden blades into a deft catch of a wingtip as he says, “We have to slow the bleeding in his abdomen while I get these other wounds in check.” He starts slicing open Handy’s newish mechanic’s jumpsuit as he groans, “I hope I’m wrong, please don’t be the liver…”

Gearing has a stress induced sense of time dilation as he feverishly works to save Handy’s life. In this way his mind pseudo wanders from the present as he starts thinking about his weird string of training. His various combat experiences. His medical training. Not enough to get him a medical license anywhere by any means. Not even close. It’s just enough to make him dangerous. Not even near enough to pass the medical exam, at least without cheating or a good binge study session. During the war, multiple gunshot wounds were commonplace on the battlefield. It was rare to get a single shot victim that wasn’t fatal because if someone was going to shoot at you most would send several rounds at you at a time. Single shot fatalities were normally the work of a carefully timed professional. Which weren’t the majority on an open battlefield. So if someone was shot repeatedly, there were things that he could do for them. But, just like a lot of things Gearing has been doing since he was a foal, he learned to do the best he can with what he has available. And improvise. As he’s thinking about faces and events from over two hundred years ago, he mindlessly makes quick tourniquets and straps them to two of Handy’s legs. He literally duct tapes wads of cloth to three other spots, all while looking where Swift is holding. As he’s slapping more and more makeshift methods for stemming the tide of blood flow, he keeps thinking, Not enough. Not enough. This isn’t enough.

All the while both the little blue and little gold pegasi in his head hold up various posters of anatomy, still images of memories of battlefield triage of the past, articles from various magazines he’d read, and other helpful things as Gearing systematically closes as many bloody leaks in Handy’s hide as quickly as he can.

Gearing starts getting brought out of his zen like state by Swift getting more and more vocal. She starts demanding answers. Demanding reassurances. Demanding action. And he starts arguing with Swift out of reflex as he’s barely paying her any attention as he’s focused his whole being on stopping the flow of blood from Handy. She wants to grab him and go. To hurry up and get him back to the stable’s auto doc. And Gearing flatly responds, “He won’t make it.” She continues arguing and getting emotional and not actually making any sense as she starts sobbing so hard while trying to talk. Eventually Gearing pulls enough focus away from the gore in front of him to look her in the eye and scream at her, “Remember when I told you about the shot? You did what you wanted then. And everything turned out because you got lucky. But, I’m telling you now, he will not make it! You understand me?! You grab him and leave and he’ll be a cold corpse before you even hit the station!”

The reply is like a slap to her face as it sends a jolt through her whole body. But she’s still panicking and asks through sobs, “What are we gonna do, what are we gonna do, what are you gonna do?”

Gearing stops time as he activates SATS. But instead of targeting anyone, he mentally uses the control system to tap out a message using his pipbuck. Once done, he then cancels SATS, resumes time, and sends it to her. He yells at her, “Open that message and as soon as it’s open, activate SATS, that’ll give you time to read it!”

She’s dumbfounded but does as instructed.

The message from Gearing basically tells her that Handy’s one and only chance is for her to go, as fast as she can, and get a healing potion from the stable. She’s the fastest one. But if she tries to carry Handy, he’ll just bleed out on her before she gets there. And Gearing’s wings aren’t good enough for it at the moment either. But, if she leaves, right now, Gearing can keep working on him and slow the blood loss enough. If they’re lucky, he’ll get it under control enough that he can start carrying Handy and taking him there. If they work together, they’ll be able to meet up at the halfway point, get Handy a potion, and that’ll last him well enough to get to the medical doc. What he needs is emergency surgery, a round in the auto doc in medical. He’s got too much metal in him at the moment and an ever dwindling blood supply.

She begrudgingly agrees, and is about to leave, but Gearing holds her up just long enough for him to use a whole pack of wonder glue on Handy’s neck, holding it there with the side of the package as he thinks, His artery’s been nicked… This should let blood get to the brain at least long enough to get him to the auto doc. And it seems that the torn flesh is held together enough that it stops leaking as the glue cures in place.

With that bit of malpractice medicine complete, he sends Swift on her way and keeps working on Handy. Which she obliges by bolting out at a speed that, frankly, Gearing wasn’t aware she was able to achieve. Which genuinely is saying something.

Gearing stoops down and checks Handy’s injured legs. One has significantly slowed bleeding. A good sign. The tourniquet is working.

But the second one, his hind leg, doesn't seem to be working well. And certainly not well enough. Gearing swears. “What now, the femoral artery too!?” Gearing lets out a groan before he says, “Handy, I’m sorry, but this is really going to suck.”

Handy’s kind of in shock and not able to move much, even his screaming has died down to a miserable moan.

Until Gearing’s sharp knife digs into Handy’s thigh. Handy thrashes a bit, and screams louder again, but Gearing uses a hoof and holds him down without even looking at him as he uses his wing to cut in deeper along the bullet wound. He reaches into the wound and wraps a bit of wire around the fleshy tube that’s leaking Handy’s life fluid at an alarming rate. But Gearing treats the thin wire like it were a simple cloth thread, wrapping it around, and pulling it taut, twisting and tying it until the loss of blood comes to a complete stop as the artery is tied off. And Gearing lets out a gush as he says, “Okay, that one’s clamped too…”

He checks the one on Handy’s abdomen, lifts the cloth bundle, and instantly swears. “I fucking hate being right…”

Gearing grabs Handy and looks him in the eye as Handy asks weakly, “Are you finally d-done?”

And Gearing replies softly, “No, I’m not done. Because I’m not giving up on you. You’re not making me explain to your foals what happened. You’re gonna do that yourself… We’re going to leave in a minute, but there’s something else I have to do first before we can go. We’re going soon. Okay? Just need to hold on a bit longer. You’re going to be fine, Handy. I’m not going to give up on you, so you better not either.”

Handy shakily nods as he shivers along the length of his whole body.

Gearing grabs a piece of rebar from not far away, and quickly throws together an abomination using a spark battery. He intentionally shorts the battery, across the rod, using some wires that obviously wouldn’t comply with code requirements. The wires catch fire from the overload, with the insulation around them quickly becoming black smoke, and then the metal quickly sags and melts away, but the rod turns red hot in short order. The act makes Gearing grunt in displeasure from the temperature himself. Gearing uses his forelegs to hold Handy down as he says, “I’m sorry, you can hate me, but I’m not letting you go that easy!” and jabs the piece of rebar straight into the wound in Handy’s abdomen. Instantly Handy thrashes around and screams, as much as he can, as his flesh cooks.

Gearing screams down at him, while leaning over him, “I’m sorry, Handy! The doc will be able to fix this, but I got to get you there first!” He leaves the rod of rebar inside the wound, picks up Handy, and takes off with him, using all four legs to cradle and hold Handy as he takes flight and flies as fast and as straight as he can. His wings had been healing the entire time. But they aren’t nearly 100% yet. Not by a long shot. So as he’s scooping up Handy, he makes a point of licking the dirty floor, blood, soot, and all, to get at least some of the spilt potion into himself to try and hurry the repairs along. He knows his implants will boost the effects, but even so, it’s going to take time before his wings are truly up to snuff. So it’s slowing him down a bit more than he’d like as he makes a bee line for the stable.

Before he really got going, Gearing sent a burst message to the stable using his broadcaster, letting Sable and the others know what happened, to get the auto doc ready, and meet at the door with a pouch of healing potions so Swift can grab and go. It’s the first time he’s used it for active communication, and he hopes that it’ll help since he has no guarantees that either Nettlekiss or Sable will be actively monitoring them. He hadn’t gotten that far with the setup yet, and hopes Sable's typical desire for more information regarding him will help incentivize her to do just that.

Gearing ends up making it more than halfway there before running into Swift again. They pause just long enough to get a couple potions down Handy’s throat, as she’s having a conniption fit about how much more injured he looks, and Gearing is positively covered in blood. Wanting to help as much as possible, Swift even makes Gearing drink a potion too to make him go faster. Because even now, Gearing is able to hold Handy rather still while flying, a feat that Swift simply can’t do. But even though the plan seems to be working, they get all the way to the stable with growing concern. Gearing straight up flies all the way to the medical bay none stop with the contamination chamber getting overridden for Gearing to fly right through with no pauses.

However, the rebar piece sticking out of Handy is so big that Gearing has to actually pull it out before they can close the pod lid. And as he does he has Handy hold a mouthful of potion and another at the ready. But as soon as Gearing yanks it out of him, Handy only gets half of the potion down his throat as he yells, half drinking, half inhaling the rest, and coughing out a bunch all over everything and everyone within range. Gearing ignores the bloody mixture spurted onto his face and pours a bunch of the potion he’d held in reserve directly into the reopened hole, now that it’s bleeding again thanks to him ripping out so much of the cauterized scab and wound, and then quickly shuts the auto doc’s lid and starts the procedure.

Swift grabs and holds onto Gearing as she spins him around and demands to know that Handy’s going to be okay. Her distraught brain is managing to formulate the questions, but they are coming out as demands and statements that she obviously wants to be reaffirmed.

But Gearing is kind of in a fit of a state himself. And as he’s still trying to process everything himself through the burnout he states rather flatly, “Successfully getting Handy into the auto doc and treatment started has raised his survival rate to eighty three percent.”

Swift balks before she screeches, “What kind of answer is that?!”

Gearing replies flatly, “The longer the auto doc runs without any alarms or premature shutoff, the higher his outlook is…”

The answers are not the answers Swift wants to hear, obviously, and she just starts shaking Gearing as she tries to get something she can understand and hold onto from him.

Nahlah comes into the medical bay and looks them over after following the blood trail from the hallway. She’s seen how Swift is reacting, and knows it’s not going to lead to anything good at this rate. So, in an attempt to change directions, she comments, “Gearing, you look like shit…”

Swift looks over at her, with her eyes red and swollen, and her cheeks drenched in her own tears as she tries to process what that has to do with Handy and his well being.

Gearing looks down at himself and replies, “Well, butcher shop surgery is all I know…”

Sable comes in and around Nahlah, looks at Gearing, and starts pulling him away from Swift with her cables and forelegs as she looks at Swift. “My darling Gearing has done all he can. My darling Gearing needs to get cleaned up and seen to. I suggest subject Swift tend to her husband.” As they are walking away she adds, “His estimates are correct. Subject Handy Hooves is in critical, but stable, condition.”

Nahlah goes over and sits with Swift as Gearing and Sable make their way back into the hallway, and Cure starts hovering around cleaning up what had been splattered on the floor. A few of the protectaponies have already started their cleanup duties in the hallway leading to the main entrance of the stable.

Sable leads Gearing down the hall, and to the decontamination chamber for the Research and Development Department. And, once inside of the chamber, Sable starts quickly undoing all of Gearing’s equipment and removing it from him. There’s so much blood on it that it’s actually hard to keep a hold of it in some instances. Especially the prototype shotgun. She quickly removes his equipment, damaged armor and all, then starts rubbing all of the blood and grime off of Gearing’s metallic pelt. All without Gearing saying anything since leaving the Medical Bay. She knows that now that the crisis is over, he’s been trying to process what all has happened himself, and she has let him have his peace.

But in an attempt to give him an option, as Sable is carefully trying to massage the various bits of filth off of Gearing, she asks softly, “Gearing, my love… do you want to talk about it?”

And the apparent prompting works.

Gearing slowly sits down as he says, “He was right there. Right next to me. We didn’t hear anything until the bullets started tearing through the sheet metal of a shipping container… That screeching, tearing sound. They had armor piercing bullets. That had to of been what they were using… It wasn’t kinetic rounds… They had to be AP rounds… It was enough to eat through the sheet metal, but after that they were slowed down enough that the damage to us was relatively minimal… And yet… still… Handy…”

Sable slips behind him, wraps her forehooves around his neck, and pulls his head backwards into her chest. Then she starts wrapping him up with her cables and gently caressing him along his abdomen and sides. She gently pulls him back into her as she caresses him. But, as she does, he just looks up at the water coming down on them and says nothing. He doesn’t even close his eyes as he’s being pelted by the solution.

Gearing’s stare becomes blank as he focuses far away and his memories of the event jump around chaotically. “His armor held up pretty well, despite getting swept with a broadside of rapid fire. But there were still many penetrations. The blood flowed instantly. I ripped the armor off to see how bad it was. It was bad. Shallow neck through and through nicked the jugular. Much more over and he’d be beyond saving with just that. Multiple torso impacts. One of which was the liver. Two legs. One his hind. That hit the femoral artery. Lucky it didn’t sever it entirely or it would have retracted into his abdomen and I’d never get it pinched off…”

He drops his head and stares blankly in silence for a bit longer before he leans back into Sable’s embrace and just hangs his head. “I knew Handy’s chances were slim at best. Especially without any potions to use. The things I had to do to him to try and save him are nothing less than torture. I stabbed and burned and tore his flesh. No anesthetic. Just held him down and abused him. I even made Swift leave to go get the potions. But, that was only part of it. I had to get rid of her. I knew she’d not let me do what I needed to do to save him. Not like what I was doing had a high chance anyway. But every second of arguing with her would have just been that much more blood joining the pool under him. So, she had to go.” He goes limp as he closes his eyes. “I- I could feel his life slipping away, right in my hooves. When I got his leg open, to get the artery closed off, I could feel his pulse through the artery. It was getting weaker. And yet faster. It’s that weird part of anatomy where the body knows it’s not getting enough oxygen to itself, and the blood pressure is lower than it likes, so it starts beating faster and faster to try and make up for it. And I could feel the pulses in the artery as I pinched it off… But we made it back to the stable with him still alive.” He nods weakly as he says, “I even scraped out some of the spilled potion and gave him that. Glass and all. I’m not even sure it really helped, but it couldn’t have hurt. Only way I’d really be able to know at this point is with a time machine or some sort of precognition ability.” He snorts in dark amusement at his own ridiculousness. “Dammit… we were just starting to get along and then this happens... But after what I did to him, he’ll probably never forgive me. He’ll probably be terrified of me, and this time have every justification for it. I mean, from his perspective, it was like I mercilessly tortured him for information that we both knew he didn’t have. But, as long as he pulls through, I won’t regret it. Even losing a budding friendship. It was worth it. I didn’t get into this life to make friends. I joined the war to save lives. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do. He can hate me all he wants as long as he keeps breathing enough to sling curses at me...”

Sable gives him a noticeably tighter squeeze as she holds him to her.

After a few more moments, of Sable holding Gearing tightly to her, Gearing comments quietly, “If that had been that fifty with AP rounds, we both would have been screwed. It had to of been a minigun, and judging by the holes they were five millimeter rounds, but it could have easily been a fifty… They have an LMG, I know that, that’s what they shot Swift with. But now they shot us with a minigun loaded with AP rounds… Just who are these fuckers?”

Gearing starts bristling as his body tenses up a bit the more he thinks about it.

Sable starts slowing down her caressing of his abdomen and shoulders. She pauses running her forehooves across his chest when she can feel his metallic mane bristle against her. She lets out a sigh before she asks, “You’re going back… aren’t you?”

Gearing says nothing.

She pulls him back, and forces him to look up at her, even if it’s going to be in reverse. She stares him in the eye for a few moments before leaning in and giving him a kiss in this uncomfortable upside down reverse position. And once she pulls back she gives him a slight, but warm, smile. “You are the best pony for the task, my darling Gearing. We both know this. So I will not stop you, but-”

“You’re not coming with me, Sable…” Gearing snaps and interrupts before she can say anything that’s going to cause them to have an argument.

She turns to the side, twisting around, and maneuvering him as well so they can look at each other at eye level but without any gravity shenanigans between them. “But… You are not allowed to leave without properly equipping yourself this time. You know the kind of ponies they are now… Take what you need to deal with them and do it as quickly as you can. I’m aware Swift and Handy will not be happy about not being able to get some revenge on them for this, as they both have come to harm, but, in this particular instance, you are the better pony for it.” She rubs his cheek and trails it around to cradle his head. “When it comes to close quarters with dark interiors, that’s your specialty. You can get into places most others can’t. And if you don’t have to coordinate, you can be free to act… Especially if you don’t have to worry about anyone getting caught in the crossfire.”

The little golden pegasus in Gearing’s head leans sideways and asks, ‘Wait, hold on… How she know so much? The dossier you gave me didn’t mention a lot of combat with her…’

His little blue pegasus companion arcs an eyebrow before replying, ‘Beats me… And that accent popped up at the end again, did you hear it?’

‘Mmmhmmm.’

They both lean towards her as they start giving her a discerning eye.

Gearing ignores the peanut gallery in his head as he goes from looking at one of her eyes to the other before he asks, “What are you saying, Sable?”

Sable grins at him as she asks, “You were planning on just dropping the whole building on their ears, weren’t you?”

The little golden pegasus in Gearing’s head leans back as he folds his forelegs across his chest. ‘Okay. Yup. I like her already. Fantastic idea.’

The other little pegasus assumes the same posture as he nods sagely. ‘Surely a mare of culture and class.’

Gearing stares at her for a moment as his eyes don’t really move. He blinks a few times. Then he smirks. “I wasn’t… but… now that you’ve put that idea into my head, I kinda feel like I kinda need to, don’t I?”

Sable shrugs before she says, “Do whatever it is that you feel you need to do. And just know that I will be here waiting on you to return.” She taps him on the nose before she narrows her eyes. “Just make sure to bring a couple healing potions for yourself. I know the amount you brought with you before was not enough for what had transpired. So make sure to bring some with you… I know you don’t have to worry about bleeding out, but, I don’t want you having to suffer and limp home either.” She grabs his cheeks with both forehooves as she stares at him in the eye. “Take what is specific to you… You hear me?” Gearing stares at her for a few moments, then nods lightly. And after that bit of confirmation she leans in and gives him a faint kiss on the nose before letting him go. Then she gets up and heads towards the door leading into the R&D department. “Well, come along. I know you’re in a hurry to get out of here… And, most likely, want to be gone long before Handy is done with the auto doc… because if they get out, they are going to want to leave. Even if Handy isn’t feeling up to it, which he might not given the blood loss, Swift most assuredly will want to go along. She doesn’t like being left out of such things and she has a bit of an ax to grind with those ponies at the moment.”

Gearing follows her out of the decontamination room and heads straight to his equipment lockers, leaving everything where it has already been left. He starts opening up the various lockers as he says. “This time: no armor. That helped stop some of the bullets coming at me, but it’d be too much of a hindrance if it’s not modified appropriately. I need flexibility. I need to be able to stretch out as much as possible without having it confining me, or, worse, popping or breaking loose when I stretch beyond what it’s wanting me to.”

Sable starts pulling out various boxes and crates. Each one with organized ammunition types and calibers. She starts walking over to the storage chamber as she asks, “What kind of explosives would you like to take with you, my dearest one?”

Gearing starts laying out a grid of equipment again. But, the weapons he’s taking are few in nature. The 10 mm pistol he acquired in this very room is a given. But then he also takes the pistol that he’d taken from the Ironshod R&D department. That Gun. He doesn’t have a whole lot of rounds for it. But it’s far too useful not to take given its size. Also he plans on giving it to Handy once this is all over. He’d been thinking of him the whole time for it. So in this way he’ll be able to get some revenge on Handy’s behalf with his own weapon. He also grabs one of the rifles that he had refurbished, and multiple boxes of ammo worth for it. On top of several magazines. As he’s laying them out he says, “Prioritize storage…” And as he’s looking at it, he sees Sable adding a small laser pistol and a couple of the ammo packs for it.

As her cable is returning to her after laying them out with the rest of the grid, she comments, “Variety is important, my love. That has multiple uses beyond simply terminating bad ponies…”
Gearing nods as he looks at it, and decides it’s actually a good idea. Despite having its own issues, it has its own advantages as well. And as he’s going down the mental list of things to bring, he goes over to his maintenance supply area, and cracks open a couple of the boxes. As he’s looking inside the smile on his face turns cold as he comments. “Multi purpose tools certainly are some of the best…”

Footnote:

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Analyzing Data, Please Stand By . . .

Matrix Quadrant ‘Personal’ Status: Ready.

‘BlueMac.Cred’ Sub Partitioned Successfully

Author's Note

A quick trip was faster than expected, because it ended badly and nopony's happy with the turn of events. Also Gearing demonstrating his surgery skills from Butcher's School of Hard Knocks.

Also, earlier today the first segment of Clockwork Precisions Ask the Characters blog has been released. You can find it on the blog I made here: Quillsy's Library: Ask the Characters

For those that wish to help support the project, and get access to more chapters earlier among other potential perks, that option is available through. Patreon.

Don't want an ongoing obligation, but would still like to help a bit?
You can always with this internet tip jar.

[side note: I'm sorry that button looks so obnoxiously large, I can't figure out how to shrink it. The html code that should work isn't working with fimfic for some reason.]

Thank you very much for all of the ongoing support, both financial and not, it truly means a lot to me!